161 Occasional Paper AUGUST 2018 Contra Massive Retaliation: Possible Trajectories of a Flexible Response Deterrent Strategy for India ARKA BISWAS KARTIK BOMMAKANTI YOGESH JOSHI Contra Massive Retaliation: Possible Trajectories of a Flexible Response Deterrent Strategy for India ARKA BISWAS KARTIK BOMMAKANTI YOGESH JOSHI ABOUT THE AUTHORS Arka Biswas was an Associate Fellow at ORF's Strategic Studies Programme and a Visiting Fellow at Stimson Center. He is a Physics graduate and has a Master's Degree in International Relations. His work has appeared in the Washington Quarterly, Comparative Strategy, Foreign Policy, and The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Kartik Bommakanti is an Associate Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme at ORF, New Delhi. He specialises in space-military, nuclear and Asia-Pacific security issues. He has published in policy monographs and peer-reviewed journals. Yogesh Joshi is a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Stanford University. He has a PhD in International Politics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, and he specialises in Indian foreign and security policy. He has held fellowships at George Washington University, King's College London, and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC. ISBN : 978-93-88262-07-1 2018 Observer Research Foundation. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from ORF. Contra Massive Retaliation: Possible Trajectories of a Flexible Response Deterrent Strategy for India ABSTRACT The extant scholarship on India's nuclear doctrine, while problematising the credibility deficit in the strategy of massive retaliation, fails to provide a policy alternative. This study examines the alternative of flexible response available for India and makes an assessment of whether it provides a solution to this problem in India's nuclear doctrine. Even when flexible response is often cited in India's strategic circles as a likely alternative, the contours of such a strategy have hardly been deliberated. This paper seeks to develop the concept of flexible response as India confronts a rapidly changing strategic environment. It charts out the various parameters on which an alternative nuclear doctrine of flexible response can potentially be based. However, such a policy-shift must correspond with India's deterrence objectives and its nuclear wherewithal. I. INTRODUCTION Is India's nuclear deterrent strategy of 'massive retaliation' credible? Various experts not only from India have critiqued the strategy on a number of factors, saying that it lacks credibility. These criticisms are based on an interpretation of the strategy as a threat of nuclear retaliation against population and industrial centres using strategic nuclear weapons. However, there are a number of reasons why New Delhi is unlikely to follow up on such a threat. First, some have argued ORF OCCASIONAL PAPER # 161 • AUGUST 2018 1 Contra Massive Retaliation: Possible Trajectories of a Flexible Response Deterrent Strategy for India that the policy of targeting civilians with nuclear weapons in response to a tactical use of nuclear weapon by an adversary in battlefield is inhumane. Second, the burden of escalation of nuclear conflict from tactical to strategic levels involving an all-out nuclear war will fall solely on India under this strategy. Third, and perhaps the most important reason, is that a massive nuclear response by India would invite retaliation on a similar scale and nature from Pakistan; no civilian government in New Delhi will be willing to bear such costs. India's strategy of massive retaliation therefore does not appear to be credible enough. Exploiting this credibility-deficit vis-a-vis India's massive retaliation strategy, Pakistan has adopted a first use policy and has lowered its nuclear threshold by introducing tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs). Because of perceptions that New Delhi would not follow up on its threat of massive retaliation against, say, a first use of a TNW by Pakistan on Indian soldiers in Pakistan's own territory, Rawalpindi has managed to apparently deter India from launching a variety of conventional attacks. This 'instability-instability' paradox, to use the words of Paul Kapur, allows Pakistan to continue its proxy war against India while blocking the latter's ability to punish Pakistan through conventional means. 1 Analysts, therefore, have called on India to renounce massive retaliation as the country's nuclear deterrent strategy. The extant scholarship on India's nuclear doctrine does problematise the credibility deficit but barely provides a policy alternative. The requirement is clearly for an alternative blueprint for a more effective nuclear deterrent strategy. Flexible response is often mentioned as a viable alternative, but literature suggests that there are varying interpretations of 'flexible response' and, consequently, of its 2 ORF OCCASIONAL PAPER # 161 • AUGUST 2018 Contra Massive Retaliation: Possible Trajectories of a Flexible Response Deterrent Strategy for India advantages and disadvantages. As New Delhi ponders the credibility- deficit of massive retaliation, the challenge is to establish parameters that will guide policymakers in constructing a flexible response alternative. Parameters will have to be informed by the varied interpretations of the advantages and disadvantages of flexible response, re-contextualised to meet New Delhi's strategic interests, given its technical capabilities. India may have to re-examine its retaliatory strike strategy that envisions the use of strategic nuclear weapons in response to Pakistan's first use of tactical nuclear weapons. This paper is an attempt to chart the contours of the debate and the policy alternatives that India should weigh as it prepares to make its nuclear deterrent strategy more credible. It argues that for flexible response to serve as a lynchpin in India's nuclear doctrine, the country must begin exploring its contours. The paper, therefore, seeks to develop the concept of 'flexible response' in the Indian strategic environment. It charts out certain parameters on which an alternative doctrine of flexible response can potentially be based. Such a policy- shift must correspond with India's deterrence objectives and its nuclear wherewithal. The paper is divided into two major sections. The first deliberates on massive retaliation, explains the concept and its origins, its application in the Indian context, and its weaknesses. The second section focuses on flexible response as an alternative, discussing its origins in the Cold War era, and its relevance in contemporary India. It examines the possibilities and the challenges of a flexible deterrent posture that India can, and should, adopt. The paper concludes that even when officially India maintains its policy of massive retaliation, New Delhi must debate extensively the advantages and weaknesses of shifting towards a flexible response strategy. ORF OCCASIONAL PAPER # 161 • AUGUST 2018 3 Contra Massive Retaliation: Possible Trajectories of a Flexible Response Deterrent Strategy for India A caveat is in order: the debate being engaged with here is strictly over India's declaratory doctrine. Recent scholarship suggests that it is the nuclear posture the capabilities, deployment patterns, and command and control procedures a state uses to manage and operationalize its nuclear weapons capability that reflects what a state can do with its nuclear weapons and thus captures a state's ability to deter various kinds of conflicts.2 The examination of India's nuclear posture thus becomes important in assessing whether India can employ the retaliatory strategies of massive retaliation or flexible response (and its interpretations), for instance. The current nuclear posture of India is unclear about what New Delhi intends to do with its nuclear weapons and how the adversary perceives the Indian state's intentions. Does it view them primarily as instruments of deterrence, or of warfighting? As William Kaufmann argues in his analysis of the requirements of deterrence, intentions of a state forms an important element of the credibility of its nuclear retaliatory strategy as a tool of deterrence.3 India's declaratory doctrine and how experts from India, Pakistan and the US read it, becomes an important indicator of the credibility of India's nuclear deterrence as it reflects the country's intentions. It is the reason that while India's capabilities and procedures to operationalise those capabilities are considered, the study focuses more on the compatibility of massive retaliation and flexible response, on one hand, and India's intentions in its declaratory doctrine and the interpretations of the doctrine. II. MASSIVE RETALIATION AND NFU: PILLARS OF INDIA'S NUCLEAR DOCTRINE The two pillars of India's nuclear doctrine are Massive Retaliation (MR) and No First Use (NFU). Following the 1998 nuclear tests, a Draft Nuclear Doctrine (DND) was unveiled by New Delhi in August 1999. 4 ORF OCCASIONAL PAPER # 161 • AUGUST 2018 Contra Massive Retaliation: Possible Trajectories of a Flexible Response Deterrent Strategy for India The doctrine prepared by a group of mostly civilian strategists of the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) advocated a posture of punitive retaliation (PR) in case deterrence collapses. PR was adopted largely in response to Pakistan's attack at Kargil that resulted in a three- month-long